Hostages of the Tigers
A resident of the Khabarovsk region has been trying for two years to prove that he killed a tiger while protecting his brother, but the court, following the police, ruled it poaching.
Author: Kira Rakusa
In February 2023, 19-year-old Sergei Kialundzyuga and 23-year-old Alexander Sigde, cousins-Udege people — They set off from the Khabarovsk village of Arsenyevo to go fishing in the taiga and spent the night there in a winter hut. Late in the evening, Sergei, hearing a noise outside, looked out the window—and was immediately knocked down by an Amur tiger leaping into the hut. By the time Alexander grabbed a rifle and shot the animal, the predator had already bitten off Sergei's arm. But the police believed that Sigde had provoked the attack on his brother by shooting the tiger earlier in the forest. In May 2025, an appeals court found Alexander guilty of murder. Red Data Book animalThis isn't the first time the state has prioritized protecting the tiger in a battle between humans and tigers. After all, Vladimir Putin is personally concerned about the fate of this endangered species. People, however, must take care of themselves.
We are publishing this story together with the publication New Tab
"They slipped me a piece of paper"
After being discharged from the hospital, Sergei Kialundzyuga spent a long time tucking his empty left sleeve into his pocket, creating the appearance of a hand, and hiding his face under a hood to avoid recognition. Now he no longer pays attention to the sidelong glances of passersby and, when we meet, even tries to joke.
We spot a short guy in a gray T-shirt with a loose sleeve where his left arm should be and black sneakers from a distance. A friend of Sergey's had laced his sneakers about a year ago, and he hasn't unlaced them since: it's difficult to do so with one hand. I extend my hand to shake, but it's rough. Sergey explains that he lifts weights to strengthen his remaining right arm.
The young man now lives in the coastal village of Luchegorsk, where he moved from Arsenyev in September 2024 to "get away from everyone," including the taiga and tigers.
Two years ago, in January 2023, Sergey, his cousin Sasha, and three other relatives set off on snowmobiles 70 kilometers from Arsenyev to the Tormasa River in Anyuysky National Park. The men planned to fish and spend the night in winter huts. The brothers packed the fish they caught into sacks, and their relatives transported it home in a Buran.
Sergey says he came to the forest for more than just fishing: he wanted to take his mind off the death of his father, who died the year before when a relative felled a birch tree. "I thought I'd calm down in the taiga, earn some money fishing, and then come to my senses," Sergey explains. He was studying to be a welder at college at the time and was working part-time in his field. After his father's death, he needed to support his family: Sergey has two younger sisters and a brother, and his mother is disabled, so he sent her the money he earned from his part-time work.
As we walk along a narrow path, Sergei seems to give the photographer and me a wide berth. He jokes that he once ran away from a journalist because "his lawyer forbade him from speaking to the press." Recalling the tiger attack is still difficult for him. Sergei says he didn't want to go into the forest then because he "had a premonition." "On the other hand, if they hadn't taken me, someone else could have died," he muses.
Around 11 p.m. on February 12, Sergei says, he heard a noise on the roof, but thought it was the cat—they'd brought it from home to catch rats in the winter quarters. The last bag of fish, which hadn't fit on the snowmobile that had left for the village, was in the attic. "Did you hear that?" Sergei asked his brother, who was lying on the bed, and opened the window curtain. "And there was [the tiger's] huge head." According to him, the tiger jumped straight through the window, shattering the glass.
"Lucky I only managed to get my hand out. He bit into my shoulder, even though he was aiming for my neck, and he scratched me from behind with his claw." Sergei pulls back the collar of his shirt and shows the dent on his back between his shoulder blades. "Sashka runs out, grabs the gun—it was hanging on a nail behind the door—and shoots [the tiger] in the head, point-blank."
His brother applied a tourniquet to Sergei's forearm to stop the bleeding, laid him on the bed, and turned on the TV to distract him. There was no cell phone reception in the forest, so Alexander went for help to his uncle, Mikhail Sigde, who was spending the night in another winter hut ten kilometers away. The man helped carry his wounded nephew to his warm hut and then headed to the road to find a signal—he was the only one who knew where there was a signal. The Buran had broken down earlier in the forest, and Mikhail had to walk about 45 kilometers on skis across untracked snow to get help.
Sergei was only able to be airlifted to a hospital in Khabarovsk on February 14. He had several broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and by the time he was evacuated, he had lost two liters of blood. The wound where his arm had been severed had become infected.
"I open my eyes and I'm already on a gurney in the hospital. Photographers and journalists are shining their lights right in my face, it's unsettling. I pass out, then wake up when my mom comes in. I sit up with difficulty and only then notice my arm is gone. I cried for a whole week," Sergei recalls.
Later he learned that before the attack, the tiger had destroyed several winter huts in the area: in one it had knocked down the door, in another it had torn to pieces foam mattress.
In March, a man and a woman in police uniform came to see Sergei in the hospital.
"They took advantage of the moment when my mother went out to get groceries and came into the room. They started asking me how it all happened. I told them, but they didn't believe me. I thought they were writing down what I was saying, but in reality, they slipped me a piece of paper with the investigation's version of events. I stupidly didn't read it and signed it," Sergei recounts. He says he was still groggy at the time.
The investigation's theory was that Kyalundzyuga and Sigde were poaching, and that Alexander first shot a tiger in the taiga. A few days later, the animal, already enraged by its wound, attacked Sergei. Alexander killed the attacking predator, but the case file doesn't say how it ended up in the winter hut. Either the attack actually occurred in the hut itself, or the brothers, one of whom was missing an arm and bleeding profusely by then, dragged the dead tiger in themselves. Whatever the case, the theory of illegal tiger hunting formed the basis of the charges.
"Tiger has to eat something."
In sunny Luchegorsk, where Sergei Kyalundzyuga now lives, images of tigers are everywhere: a bright green topiary in the shape of a predator in the central square, a stylized homemade bench with a tiger, a stand reminding people of the importance of preserving this rare animal. The Amur tiger is the pride of the Far East, but in recent years, it has also become the main threat to these areas: the cats are listed as endangered. they gnaw at In the villages there are dogs, cows, and horses. Rarely, attacks on humans occur.
Tigers are rare in Luchegorsk itself. The last time residents saw the striped predator was this winter, 12 kilometers from the village—near an active coal mine where workers feed stray dogs. One of the dogs, tail between its legs, crawled under an excavator as a tigress and cubs ran nearby.
Many locals we ask about tigers on the streets have their own stories about how encounters with the dangerous cats end. But all these stories share one common thread: the government hasn't simply abstained from addressing the problem; it's literally sided with the predators, even when confrontations are life-or-death.
"If a person defends themselves and kills an animal, not only do they get a million-ruble fine, they also go to court. I know two people who were mauled by a tiger when it got into their winter hut: one died, and the other shot [the tiger]. A million and a half-ruble fine and a year and a half in prison," says one of the residents, Alexey, whom we met on the street. "Poachers shoot them, and when they wound one, they attack. Plus, there's hunger—hunters have killed all the game, there's nothing left to eat in the forest."
At the bus station, we meet a pensioner, Tamara, from the neighboring village of Verkhniy Pereval. Like many in the Far East, she calls the striped predator "Tigra." This year, the endangered cats in their village snatched several dogs from their chains.
— We have Tigra settled on the side Bikina, the second Tiger - with Alchana"They divided the village into two parts. "They can't kill them! They're quietly hauling the dogs every winter," Tamara says.
According to her, tigers have become more common in Verkhniy Pereval in the last three or four years, after African swine fever swept through Primorye and many wild boars died out in the forests:
— People went mushroom picking and said: there are carcasses [of dead boars] lying around everywhere. But Tigre has to eat something.
A pensioner recalls how a man hit a striped animal on the highway and called the police: "He got a fine. So, should he have driven into a ditch to avoid hitting the tiger?"
At the local cafeteria where we stop for lunch, a 50-year-old man with a flushed face sits down with us. He's sipping compote, but surreptitiously pours something resembling cognac into his glass. His name is Andrey, and he's a turner at the local coal mine. As soon as we mention tigers, he recounts a story about a friend of his who had to guard his horse with a gun at night in the winter near a dacha community near Luchegorsk, because "there's a tiger lurking nearby." Another friend of his had to shoot a tiger:
"He says, 'Okay, he ate all the dogs, but when he attacked my wife, I shot him.' He's facing a fine of several million and jail time. I think he did the right thing, but our [Primorye governor] Kozhemyako says, 'What are you talking about? Tigers aren't allowed!' God forbid you kill a tiger—you'll get locked up, too.
According to Andrey, predators began to enter villages due to deforestation:
"There's no cedar, no squirrel, no wild boar. Personally, I hold Moscow to blame."
— Who exactly?
— Management, the very top.
In February 2023, more than 600 residents of Khabarovsk Krai have signed An appeal to Vladimir Putin, asking him to ban wild boar hunting and stop the felling of trees that boars rely on for food (in particular, oaks and cedars), so that the forests would provide food for tigers. Furthermore, people have asked Permits for shooting into the air to deter predators in populated areas. From June 2023, these permits will be issued in Khabarovsk Krai for three years. banned wild boar hunting. A similar ban has been in effect in Primorsky Krai since January 2023. But experts recognize, that the wild boar population, 70% of which perished In 2021–2022, the African swine fever outbreak is not recovering as quickly as we would like.
"I almost reached the barn when I heard a roar."
The Khabarovsk village of Arsenyevo, where the brothers Kyalundzyuga and Sigde used to live, has its own history of encounters with tigers. The most recent encounter occurred in December 2024, when a tiger attacked two dogs belonging to a local resident, Nadezhda Kyalundiga, an Udege woman. Her house is on the outskirts of the village, near a forest, and she works at a local grocery store. Standing behind the counter, she almost laughs as she recounts the incident, but initially, even the noise of passing cars made her shudder.
"My husband was on duty, and at three in the morning I heard footsteps—shuh, shuh. One dog, Amur, suddenly yelled, 'Woof!' and went silent. Then the second one, Jackie, a little dog, yelled, 'Woo-oo-oo!' And that was it, silence," Nadezhda says.
It was dark outside, and she was afraid to go out alone, so she went to bed. In the morning, the woman saw Amur, completely torn apart, in the yard. The other dog was nowhere to be found. She went to the barn to check on the cow and calf.
"I almost reached the barn when I heard a roar, a muffled roar: r-r-r-r. Was it my imagination, I thought, or what? And then it roared! My legs went limp. I wanted to walk, but I couldn't. I don't remember how I crawled home," the saleswoman recalls.
Nadezhda called the Arsenyev administration. When the game inspectors arrived, the tiger was lying in the hayloft, finishing off Jackie the dog. Noticing movement, the predator jumped down and pounced on the inspector. He managed to light a fire. flare, but that didn't deter the tiger. The second game warden struggled to aim and fire his gun for a long time, afraid of hitting his colleague.
"And he was screaming and yelling so loudly. I covered my ears, I was so scared! He shot six times. If he'd taken the tranquilizer, he says, the tiger would have mauled him [his colleague] while he was giving him the injection. <…> His face was so big, but he was so thin and scary, like he'd been mangled," Nadezhda describes the tiger. She also vividly recalls the frightened game inspector whose wounds she treated with hydrogen peroxide: his lips turned blue, and his "face turned chalky."
After this, her husband walked Nadezhda to work at the store for a month.
Locals say tigers have always been near Arsenyev, but they didn't drag dogs away until the winter of 2022–2023. Like residents of Luchegorsk, Arsenyev residents have heard about African swine fever, which has been spreading in the forests. extinct More than half of the wild boars and tigers had nothing to eat.
"Tigers—they're exhausted, weakened. This tiger that was killed, its tail was bitten off because other tigers had torn it apart and thrown it off their land," suggests Nadezhda's husband, Igor, who came to the store to complain to journalists about the predators.
He believes that tigers' movements toward villages are connected to the deforestation of taiga, which is then sold to China.
"What are they harvesting? Just oak. And oak is the boar's food supply. If the food supply is dwindling every year, why the hell are you breeding tigers? I've already told my second or third correspondent," Igor says indignantly, turning away toward the counter.
"Are we having a mass tiger outbreak?"
Residents of small villages in the taiga of Primorye and Khabarovsk Krai have effectively become hostages to tigers: killing the animals is prohibited, and what to do when a predator threatens a person is unclear. Publicly reporting attacks by endangered cats, as the experience of the Arsenyev residents has shown, is also undesirable.
— We don’t even know how to behave. These structures like the center Amur Tiger "They started pressuring me. They told me not to post anything online," Nadezhda says. "When the police arrived, they said [about the photo on social media], 'Why did you spread this?'"
At the Arsenyev administration office, in an office furnished with potted plants, we were met by the village mayor, Igor Lonchakov. He was clearly not pleased with our visit and considered the problem exaggerated:
Why are you even doing this? Two years ago, we investigated this matter; there were five reporters. Are we experiencing a mass tiger outbreak? I'm a biologist, and I know one thing: there has never been a single tiger attack on a woman or child. That incident [with the tiger attack on the Kyalundzyug and Sigde brothers]—that was in the taiga, they were hunters, it was tiger territory. But an attack on a person in a populated area? Tell me about it, and you won't.
In the case of the tiger attack on dogs in December, Igor Lonchakov blames the owners for not locking the dogs in a safe place. He adds that security in cities and towns should be the responsibility of the police, not the village mayor.
Fortunately, there have been no attacks on people by endangered cats in Arsenyev so far. However, in the winter of 2023, even before the tiger bit off Sergei Kyalundzyug's arm, several predators were lurking in the area. "My husband was walking to the bus—a tiger was running in front of him!" said Nadezhda, a saleswoman.
That year, a tiger mauled a dog under the porch of a house in Arsenyev, and inspectors killed another animal caught At an apiary near the village. Another young and hungry tigress found a frying pan with scraps of food left by workers not far from the village. Trying to lick the food, the cat's tongue got stuck to the icy metal, and when she managed to pull it off, the snow around her was stained with blood. When a snowmobile passed by and a cushion fell from its seat, the emaciated animal mauled it too. Gamekeepers tranquilized the tigress to take her into the forest, but she was so weak that she never woke up, the gamekeeper said. Dmitry Kyalundzyuga, authorized representative of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (AKMNS) of Khabarovsk Krai in the village of Arsenyevo.
Tiger attacks on people in the Far East over the past year have mostly occurred not near human habitation, but rather near populated areas. For example, in the fall of 2024, a predator dragged away into the taiga and mauled a logging worker near the Khabarovsk village of Solontsovy. In December of that same year, the tiger broke my ribs a man vacationing at a glamping site in Anyuysky National Park. His wife and children miraculously survived. In the spring of 2025, the predator bitten to death forester in Primorye.
Sergey Aramilev, General Director of the Amur Tiger Center, speaking at a recent scientific conference in Moscow, сообщил, that human deaths from encounters with Amur tigers are extremely rare: from 2010 to 2024, 20 attacks were recorded, seven of which resulted in fatalities. In all cases, according to Aramilev, humans were at fault:
"Tigers are provoked to act aggressively toward humans by gunshot wounds or other injuries inflicted on the animal by humans; also, by pursuit of the animal, when the tiger is defending itself or its offspring, or sometimes its prey," he explained. "Two recent cases in 2025 were consistent with the general statistics; both tigers had multiple gunshot wounds. Therefore, the idea of unprovoked aggression by tigers toward humans is far-fetched and exists only in unreliable online publications."
"Otherwise they won't let us go."
The Udege people of Arsenyev don't believe the investigation's theory that Sergei and his brother were hunting a tiger and thus provoked the attack. Lyubov Odzyal, President of the Khabarovsk Krai Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, asserts that the indigenous people don't poach; it's prohibited by their traditions and beliefs. Furthermore, Alexander Sigde and his brother were young men with no hunting experience and were taken into the taiga by older relatives.
Odzyal claims she spoke with Alexander's relatives, who told her that from March 11 to 13, 2023, almost everyone who traveled with Sigde into the taiga was taken to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and only released home late at night for a few hours, with interrogations beginning again early in the morning. According to Sigde's defense attorney, Alexander Zasukhin, a lengthy interrogation—from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m.—at the police station did indeed occur, but it lasted only one day. Therefore, Odzyal believes, Alexander's uncle Mikhail suggested his nephew accept the investigation's version of events and take the blame: "Otherwise, they won't let us go." We were unable to speak with either of them: Alexander Sigde declined to speak, and his uncle Mikhail Sigde did not respond to messages.
Two criminal cases were opened against Alexander Sigde: in addition to the illegal harvesting of particularly valuable wild animals, he was also charged with illegal possession of a weapon. The gun with which the young man shot the tiger, according to Sergei Kyalundzyuga, was left in the winter hut by his uncle Misha, in case of a bear attack.
Both Lyubov Odzyal and Alexander Zasukhin point out inconsistencies in the prosecution's case, specifically the confusion over the number of bullets in the tiger and the fact that no traces of the tiger's blood were found in the forest within the national park where Alexander and Sergey were. Furthermore, Zasukhin says, forensic veterinary examination Only a veterinary specialist can conduct a tiger's examination, and it was performed by the same general director of the Amur Tiger Center, Sergei Aramilev, a biologist by training. Zasukhin called him an "interested party" in court: the tiger was hungry, and the lack of food was the center's responsibility. When Alexander Zasukhin wanted to invite an independent expert from Irkutsk, the court rejected his request.
According to Aramilev's forensic analysis, Alexander Sigde shot at the tiger several days before the attack on his brother. On the day of the attack, he fired from a distance of about ten meters, hitting the tiger in the neck. Then, during the attack, he shot the tiger in the head at least twice. After a polygraph test, Sigde сказал the policeman who shot the tiger earlier because he was scared and wanted to scare the animal away. But fellow villagers count them.that Sigde gave testimony under pressure.
However, regardless of whether the accused shot the tiger before the attack or not, poaching, emphasizes Alexander Zasukhin, was not proven:
"They say [Sigde] was engaged in hunting. But to prove poaching, there must be evidence that the person intentionally searched for, tracked, and pursued the animal for the purpose of harvesting it for personal use, but this did not happen."
What other inconsistencies were there in the prosecution's case?
- The forensic report states that 12 bullets entered the tiger's body, but only 10 exited. This means that two bullets should have remained in the carcass, but the document states eight. Meanwhile, the indictment lists four gunshot wounds on the tiger, while the forensic report counted 22 (this is the sum of the entry and exit wounds from the bullets). Approx. Ed.).
- The court ruled two of the three interrogations of the participants in the events unlawful. But the third interrogation, in which Alexander Sigde admitted to shooting the tiger several days before the attack, was also unlawful, according to Zasukhin. He claims that Alexander was forced to slander himself because the interrogation took place around 10 p.m., and the investigator invited an acquaintance to represent Sigde, even though she should have requested a duty lawyer. Moreover, according to Zasukhin, his client was not notified that he was suspected of a crime, as required by law. The defense attorney claims this notification was later backdated.
- Zasukhin says that, according to the prosecution, on the day of the attack, the tiger was shot at from a distance of 10 meters while it was eating the entrails of a red deer. However, none were found in the predator's stomach.
In January 2025, the Nanai District Court of Khabarovsk Krai sentenced Alexander Sigde to two years and two months of correctional labor, with a 10% salary deduction for the state, a fine of 2,6 million rubles, and a one-year travel ban from the Nanai District. On May 20, the Khabarovsk Regional Court considered He appealed and slightly reduced his sentence, reducing the term of correctional labor to one year. The sentence has not yet entered into force, as Alexander's defense attorney is preparing to appeal it in the Supreme Court.
"As if the life of a tiger is more important to the state than the life of a human being."
Lyubov Odzyal believes that the accusatory nature of the case against Alexander Sigde is connected to lobbying for the interests of the Amur Tiger Center. He was has created The Russian Geographical Society, at the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin, aims to preserve and increase the population of the endangered Amur tiger.
Dmitry Kialundzyuga from Arsenyev shares the same opinion. He believes the case is politically motivated:
- Look composition [of the board of trustees and management] of the Russian Geographical Society. A simple Udege like Alexander would never win a lawsuit, because the state cannot lose a lawsuit. Especially since these are the times we live in—you can't just "stir up," you know? There was a different time, the International Court was in operation, and someone would have gone there to seek justice.
When asked to comment on the accusations made by representatives of the Amur Tiger Center and the inconsistencies in his examination, Sergei Aramilev, the general director of the Amur Tiger Center, said that the court had determined the culprits: "If someone disagrees with the actions of law enforcement agencies or other individuals, there is a legal procedure."
Dmitry Kialundzyuga suggests that Vladimir Putin is being given distorted information about Amur tigers in reports that blame humans for the predators' attacks, even though "the supreme leader may have good intentions for tiger conservation":
"Can't they find a reason? Why is he coming out [of the forest]? Everyone wants to save the tiger, but we shouldn't blame the indigenous people."
Tigers are exhausted, they lack prey, and in a few years, up to 90% of the population of this endangered predator in the Far East could disappear, according to zoologist Viktor Lukarevsky, who has been studying big cats since 1984 (the Amur tiger since 2008) and now works as scientific secretary at the Perm Zoo.
He says the African swine fever outbreak of 2021–2022 has only exacerbated the tiger food shortage; far more damaging is the deforestation of the Ussuri taiga and the increase in quotas for wild boar and red deer. According to Lukarevsky, raising wild boar in the forest is currently ineffective because most of them lack immunity to African swine fever, and unless a vaccine is developed, the epidemic could flare up again. In some areas of the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais, red deer are the tiger's only food source.
"How can we preserve it [the tiger] if we destroy its habitat? I'd simply like to see how you would live if your home were destroyed, your ability to work, earn a living, and find food were deprived? How would you reproduce, how would you feel? <…> Yet, we are constantly told that everything is fine with the tiger," the zoologist says.
Indeed, in the media periodically appear news that tigers in Russia are "under reliable protection" and that their population is growing, including in the Khabarovsk region, and that Vladimir Putin thanks the Amur Tiger Center for this.
According to Lukarevsky, tigers are naturally very cautious animals, and if they had enough food in the forest, they wouldn't come to populated areas: hunger alters their behavior. He adds that the Amur Tiger Center's ignoring of the predator problem angers villagers and turns them against the animals, as if the state values a tiger's life more than a human's.
To prevent tigers from attacking people and domestic animals, Lukarevsky proposes, in addition to wild boar hunting, banning red deer hunting (for five years), releasing sika deer from hunting grounds or deer farms into certain areas, and organizing feeding programs for ungulates there. According to the scientific secretary, injured tigers should be sent to rehabilitation centers or zoos, while healthy ones should be released with collars that allow them to be tracked (especially when approaching villages), and provided with food in the forest.
"I went outside to use the restroom – that's it, the person is gone."
Sergei Kialundzyuga flinches at every sound as he walks along a tree-lined path at dusk. "At first, I dreamed about this tiger. I couldn't sleep at night, taking sedatives," the young man says. Like many locals, he doesn't understand how to protect himself from tigers without being accused of breaking the law. "A person wakes up, goes outside to use the restroom—that's it, the person is gone."
When he's plagued by phantom pain, he goes to the mirror to help his brain process the fact that his arm is gone. He's already learned to cook and dress himself skillfully, but some household tasks are a challenge with one hand. "The hardest thing is tying a child's hat, and the saddest thing is that you can't go fishing," Sergei explains.
Together with his girlfriend and two children—two-year-old Katya and seven-month-old Zakhar, named after a friend who died in the war in Ukraine—they live on Sergey's disability pension of 20 rubles and child benefits. Sergey can't find work. He says people don't hire him when they find out about his one arm: "No, no, we don't need employees like that, people with disabilities."
Alexander Sigde left Arsenyev but returned. He and his wife had a second child in May. It was impossible to find out whether he has a job; his family only mentions various odd jobs. Alexander's mother, Irina Sigde, says her son has trouble sleeping: "Because he can't sleep near the taiga; he tosses and turns all night. The psychiatrist prescribed medication, but my son says it doesn't help."
Lyubov Odzyal bitterly notes that every representative of indigenous peoples, trying this story on for themselves, sees that they have fewer rights than animals:
"Everyone understands that today it was these boys, and tomorrow I or anyone else will become a victim: they'll go to the winter quarters, [and] a tiger will attack and kill them. And the media will write that they were shot beforehand, and the victim can't be considered a victim."
According to the 2021 census, there were 1325 Udege people living in the Far East at that time, and their numbers have been steadily decreasing over the past 30 years. decreasedThe Amur tiger population in 2021–2022 numbered just over 750 individuals and had been stable for three decades by that time. grewNo one argues that this rare and beautiful animal must be preserved. But not at the cost of turning a small indigenous people into prey for tigers.